Contents

Background

Bukhary volunteered, in the 1980s, to help defend Afghanistan against its Soviet occupiers.[2]He acknowledged traveling to Afghanistan to help the Taliban. However, he promptly found himself beaten and imprisoned by the Taliban. Without realizing what it would lead to, he expressed admiration of Ahmed Shah Massoud, a Mujahideen leader from the struggle against the Soviets who had been opposed to the Taliban. Bukhary was one of approximately a dozen Guantanamo captives who went from almost directly Taliban custody, to the custody of Northern Alliance warlords, to American custody.

Historian Andy Worthington quoted Bukhary's description of the Taliban's reaction to his comments on Massoud[2]:

“They got mad when I said I liked Massoud. They are crazy. They don’t like him. If I had known they didn’t like him, I wouldn’t have spoken. For saying that, they punished me … they beat me, they hit me very badly. They accused me of being a spy. They are stupid.”

Bukhary had originally traveled to Afghanistan to help the Taliban.[citation needed] Bukhary had previously fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.[6] He told his tribunal he: "... was once ready to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. But the former holy warrior has told his American captors he now loves democracy – and that hardline Taliban fighters prompted his conversion."

Allegations

To comply with a Freedom of Information Act request, during the winter and spring of 2005, the Department of Defense released 507 memoranda. Those 507 memoranda each contained the allegations against a single detainee, prepared for their Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The detainee's name and ID numbers were redacted from all but one of the memoranda. However 169 of the memoranda had the detainee's ID hand-written on the top right hand of the first page corner. When the Department of Defense complied with a court order, and released official lists of the detainee's names and ID numbers it was possible to identify who those 169 were written about. Abdul Hakim Bukhary was one of those 169 detainees.[7]

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Administrative Review Board

Captives whose CSRT labelled them "enemy combatants" were scheduled for annual Administrative Review Board hearings. These hearings were designed to judge whether the captive still posed a threat if repatriated to their home country.[10]

Bukhary chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.[11]

Abdul Bukhary and other former Taliban prisoners

Abdul Bukhary was one of nine former Taliban prisoners the Associated Press pointed out had gone from Taliban custody to American custody.[12]